A quadriplegic's moving story

Cross-country bike ride is a fundraiser, an inspiration and a personal challenge

June 06, 2012|By John P. Huston, Chicago Tribune reporter

Mark Stephan, of Winnetka, leads the pack on his recumbent tricycle as his team pedals through Texas last week. (Thao Nguyen, For the Chicago Tribune)

Pedaling from coast to coast was always a dream for Mark Stephan, and he wasn't going to let anything block his route — not even the 2007 accident that left him a quadriplegic.

Defying the odds, and after punishing rehabilitation, he has recovered some movement and feeling in his limbs — enough to turn the wheels of a recumbent tricycle. In April, the 53-year-old Winnetka man began pedaling in San Diego with the objective of cycling 3,129 miles east to Jacksonville, Fla., by the end of June.

He invited friends and family to join him on the ride and created the Stephan Challenge, a program to raise money for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to help fund a new research hospital. His goal is $1 million, and he's already raised more than $600,000, he said. It's a way to give back to the hospital that helped him literally get back on his feet, with the help of crutches — a seemingly impossible task after his accident.

But a more pressing goal for him is the ride itself. It's a grueling, strenuous activity — even for an able-bodied person. Stephan and his crew hit the road each day by 8:30 a.m. and cover about 50 miles. So far, they've pedaled through 125-degree desert heat and consumed untold gallons of water and Gatorade. Groups of friends have flown in to bike alongside him for stretches of the journey.

Stephan even hired a documentary film crew to help create a record of the feat. He wants to inspire other quadriplegics and motivate them to be as active as possible.

But he also wants to remember as much as possible about the trek — from the laughs along the way to the triumphant beers at the end of a day's ride to the daily struggle to make sure his body is keeping up with the exertion he's putting it through.

Stephan doesn't remember much about his 2007 bicycle accident. He was cycling with a group of friends, passing through Highland Park, when the front wheel of his bike disengaged from the frame and he was sent hurtling over the handlebars. He landed full-force on the pavement, snapping his neck. He doesn't remember the ambulance ride to Evanston Hospital, or transferring to Northwestern Hospital for more critical care.

His first memory after the crash is waking up on the seventh floor of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, home to its spinal cord unit. He remembers what he called a "really lousy feeling." It was actually the realization of an absence of feeling — there was no sensation in his arms or legs. No movement. Nothing.

"I was a relatively fit 49-year-old guy with four kids, a wife and a great job and a nice life. And then it all went," Stephan said of the crash. But he didn't wallow in anger.

There's not a lot of hope on the RIC's seventh floor. Many of the patients have to grapple with a new life — one that will never again include walking or performing simple tasks. Stephan said he rarely allowed himself to feel depressed.

Mark Osmond remembers visiting Stephan in the hospital not long after the accident.

"At that point he was able to talk, but not much was moving, if anything," Osmond said. "And the prognosis was not good. But Mark never gave you the impression that he believed what they were telling him, that he may not walk out of there."

But he did — albeit with a little help. Less than five months after the accident, he was able to shuffle across the threshold of the Rehabilitation Institute's front door on his own two feet.

From there, he went back into a wheelchair and didn't walk for another year, he said. But he never lost hope. The 12 months following his release were rigorous — eight hours a day, five days a week of physical therapy at the institute. He also hired a private trainer and sought out scientists interested in experimentation. He was prepared to do anything, "just trying to get stuff to fire," Stephan said of his damaged nervous system.

He's lucky to simply be able to walk, said David Chen, Stephan's attending physician at RIC.

"I think at best we envisioned him maybe being able to take a few steps and maybe being able to get from his bed to his wheelchair," Chen said.

Many people hear the term "quadriplegic" and think of someone like actor Christopher Reeve, who was completely paralyzed below the neck, Chen said.

But while Stephan's injury to two of his vertebrae was similar to Reeve's, he is now what is termed an "incomplete quadriplegic," meaning he has regained some use of his limbs — enough to pedal his recumbent tricycle. However, according to Stephan and Chen, his strength level and the amount of feeling below his neck is limited.

In 2009, two years after the accident, Stephan climbed the 2,109 steps to the top of the Willis Tower as part of a charity event. He did it that first year "because people said I couldn't."